


in the undertow

by cygnes



Category: Fright Night (2011)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:50:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8562742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: The dying part of the process is easier (simpler) than what comes after. Jerry has a vested interest in making sure that the more complicated parts go right, too.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【翻译】in the undertow暗流](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12504024) by [liangdeyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liangdeyu/pseuds/liangdeyu)



> Originally posted [here](http://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/153069202200/together-for-the-sinewy-colin-farrell-evil) on my tumblr, for [Skazka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/pseuds/skazka) and the prompt "first (platonic) night together."
> 
> Warning for some gory imagery and some not-explicitly-sexual but sexually-tinged mouth-touching in the first one, because vampires.

While it’s a good strategic choice, given the terrain, attacking the kid in the pool is less than ideal in other respects. Waste, for one: the water draws the blood out fast, faster than he can swallow it, and he’s getting an unpleasant peripheral taste of standing water. 

He realizes another mistake when he drags them both to the surface. The kid is close to unconsciousness and too weak to cough up the water in his lungs. Jerry fastens his mouth to the wound (so as not to waste any more blood) and palpates the kid’s chest. Fair’s fair, and a deal’s a deal. He has to be alive long enough to ingest Jerry’s blood. 

He coughs up water until there’s nothing coming out of his mouth but pink foam. He is blinking slowly. His eyes aren’t focusing. It could be that he’s dying, or it could be that his glasses are somewhere at the bottom of the pool. Not that it matters one way or the other. He’ll be able to see in the dark soon. 

Jerry drags a nail across the palm of his hand and holds it over the kid’s mouth. As an afterthought, he covers the kid’s nose, too. Giving him the option now to refuse to open his mouth, to try to refuse the blood, would only sow the seeds of later misgivings. Buyer’s remorse is the last thing Jerry needs in the ranks he’s building. 

After a while, the kid goes limp. His mouth, when Jerry takes his hands away, is enough of a mess that some blood must have gotten in there. Jerry splashes some water on his own face, rinses off his hands and arms, but stops before doing the same for the kid. He rubs two fingers across slack lips and presses in, behind the teeth. He makes sure there’s blood on his tongue. Better safe than sorry.

The great thing about a half-abandoned suburban development is that nobody bothers looking out their windows. They don’t have enough neighbors to be worth the bother of collecting gossip, so they miss things that should send them running for the police or the parish priest. (If anyone has those anymore.) Jerry hops fences with the kid over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but he doesn’t have to. He could walk on the sidewalk if he wanted to. Sometimes he does. 

The kid is waking up by the time they’re underground. His nails are sharpening to claws, digging into Jerry’s back.

“Where—” he starts, voice cracking and rough. 

“You have to sleep in the earth,” Jerry says. “That’s how it works.” He’s a little gentler putting the kid down than he was picking him up. It’s only fair; he’s conscious this time. And he wants this one to love him as much as fear him. He’ll be more useful that way. 

“Do I have to dig my own grave?” the kid says. 

“Sounds dramatic,” Jerry says, and grins. He doesn’t know whether his teeth are blunt or sharp. “Just get in the ground, kid.”

“Ed,” the kid says. Jerry will have to remember that. It’s easier to foster loyalty when you pay attention to the little things. 

“Ed,” Jerry repeats. “What, is the decor not up to your standards?”

“No, I just.” Ed stops, bites his lip, and splits it right open with his new teeth. He needs to be under the earth _now_ , before the impulse to rend and to feed gets turned inward rather than outward. 

“Tell you what,” Jerry says. “I have a hole dug already. Sometimes I sleep there myself, but there’s enough room for two, if you don’t mind getting friendly.” He rarely sleeps in the earth these days. It’s most important in the early days, and those are long behind him. But close proximity means it’ll be easier to subdue Ed if the madness does take him. He’s not about to say that, of course. 

Ed lets Jerry pack the dirt around them like a cocoon without protest. Even desert earth is cold this far down. Ed hasn’t gone cold yet, though, and Jerry’s warmer than he sometimes is. They share the fading warmth of Ed’s past life and listen to the sounds of other living things in the earth around them. There are many, many brothers and sisters for Ed to meet. Some other night.


End file.
